I appreciate the city wants to repair the unsafe holes in the sidewalks in my neighbourhood. They’ve had some paint white lines around the main offenders. Every couple of feet it looks like a shite grafitti artist tagged the sidewalk while crawling home from something.
The holes in the sidewalk are a very real danger for someone who uses a chair or walker, or maybe even a severe limp. The first time I wiped out in one of these I broke my leg. Spiral fracture, surgery, titanium plate and 21 screws. My leg x-ray looks pretty Terminator!

Here’s the problem: the blob of asphalt someone dumped into the hole in the corner of Dresden/Spring Garden wasn’t made level.
Instead of danger from one of my front castors getting stuck in the hole, there’s now an uneven lump of asphalt. When you have hard rubber 4 or 5″ front tires (as many chairs come with), it’s a wipe out possibility.
So instead of (finally) using that specific curb cut to cross to the other side, I still have to go off the other cut, *into traffic* to cross the street.
WTF, Halifax roads dept?
Maybe just fix the fucking sidewalks. And maybe have some at danger of having an accident due to shitty workmanship tell you if it’s done right, before you get sued.
And you will get sued.

Seriously. Can we not do better than this? Things like this are all a part of looking like dumbasses.

Don’t get me started on “the first snowfall”. It takes four or five days until I can cross any streets because of the half-assed job the sub cintractors do on clearing the sidewalks/curbcuts/crosswalks. —WheelieP

This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2011.

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49 Comments

  1. Valid bitch, but this is what happens when certain people don’t take ownership or pride in their work, shoddy work like this you may aswell let some knuckle draggers do it and save some money.

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  2. That’s the area I bitched about when I tripped in a pothole and fell and so wickedly twisted my ankle and was surrounded by people who didn’t bat an eye at me while I was on the ground. That was last April and my ankle still isn’t right.

    And then, WP, I was told to stop whining and watch were I was going….

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  4. “Blame the unions. I don’t actually know why?!?”

    Because nowhere is the concept of acceptable levels of mediocrity more explicity laid out than in the average union charter. That’s why.

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  5. I usually ignore Sebastard, but I simply cannot abide such a hateful and ignorant comment.

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  6. Did you even bother to read the entire bitch, you stupid fuckhead? OP is in a goddamn wheelchair and as such is *unable to walk*. Make yourself useful and go play in traffic, fuckface.

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  8. Did you complain to the appropriate department? IF you did, and still nothing happened, I’d invite someone from the Coast to take a picture of the site and shame the works department into fixing it.

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  11. Wheelie, why don’t you consult with a manufacturer and have a new wheel chair designed to deal with the pot holes? I hope the city fixes the holes, but I think it would be a good business investment for you to consider.

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  17. Too bad the people who do the shoddy work couldn’t do some training in a wheelchair so they could actually comprehend the realities of wheelchair mobility. Then they might get it. I sympathize with you WheelieP. Even though I don’t use a wheelchair for mobility, my klutz tendancies have sent me flying more than once on sidewalk conditions like you describe. I too, despise poor workmanship. And the treacheries of winter conditions. The two together are a recipe for disaster.

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  20. GV- the “Hoverchair” is in testing at Rick Hansen Skunkworx, as we speak.

    Is anyone surprised Seb trolled like he did? He’s a caricature of himself.

    Thanks for the support. Needed to vent.
    P

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  21. I like that Seabass has such a distinctive red and black avatar. By now it pretty much signals “next” as I’m reading through the comments. Why anyone would want to read such ham fisted, grade D trolling is beyond me….almost makes me pine for the days of Kay. Which makes it all the more bizarre when he occasionally busts out with a reasonable, not living in his mother’s basement comment.

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  23. Wheelie, aside from the obvious like a Polaris ATV, etc. Have anyone ever built an all terrian wheelchair? I’m already aware of the ones designed with a mountain bike tire for bicycle routes. I think that is kinda neat btw.

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  27. the thing i really laugh at, is that 2 or 3 weeks after they do them, they’ll come along, and rip them up again. and leave them in worst shape, than before they got repaired. ah city life, ain’t it fucking grand.

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  28. thats assinine. no one goes around ripping up pot holes. They are just inherently difficult to keep repaired with all the melting and freezing we see in a typical winter.

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  33. In the past, I’ve been involved in bicycle and ATV projects where I enjoy modifying them as much as I enjoyed riding them.

    If I was handicapped( ofcourse I hope it doesnt happen), or in any other situation where I was in a position to be spending alot of time on wheels, I would definitely build myself a fabrication shop at home to experiment and tinker with new designs and modifications. I guess that is sort of a lemonade out of lemons way of seeing things. life is too short to stay angry, right?

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  34. Jeeves, I believe the preferred nomenclature is disabled. Handicapped comes from ‘cap in hand’ from the time when those who couldn’t walk made a living by begging. Just sayin’…

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  36. XENo: “Jeeves, I believe the preferred nomenclature is disabled. Handicapped comes from ‘cap in hand’ from the time when those who couldn’t walk made a living by begging. Just sayin’…”

    Get Stuffed. Just saying…

    Not all people in wheel chairs, eligible for handicap parking, etc……not all of them have a physical disability. Some of them only have a physical impairment.

    If I had a blood clot in my lung seriously impairing my lung capacity, and my ability to walk long distances…..I’d be pissed off at any politically correct self appointed pretentious prick that would follow me around insisting that people call me ‘disabled’ instead of ‘handicapped’. As a person that loves golf, I understand handicap.

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  37. This is what I’ll be doing tomorrow afternoon, and next Sunday, my (cough) birthday (cough):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bL8K_VCCcg…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOvdBoGM-ag…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-QB8r0NHy4…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bL8K_VCCcg…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs6i6pcH1Pc…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFroEUToyaY…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_4pd-rtowE…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiDvpFeipEE…

    The idea that a person with a disability is automatically infirm is past. The guys on our national sledge hockey team all have a disability of some type. On the ice, they have no disability.
    They’re Pure Awesome.
    One of the only reasons I wish I could be young again is to have more time to play hockey.

    However, it’s a sport I really love.

    Enjoy the videos, and Sebastian, I look forward to your predicted/predictable comment.

    Wp

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  39. Just to comment on your comment, Ivan:

    “Because nowhere is the concept of acceptable levels of mediocrity more explicity laid out than in the average union charter. That’s why.”

    When my dad was working in an organization that was unionized, they actually won JD Power and Associates awards for top quality product and would regularly beat out their non-unionized counterparts in other plants owned by the same org. Just sayin’ 😉

    IN ANY EVENT, wheelie, man, have you gotten on the horn with the city? If they won’t do anything, go to the media. SERIOUSLY. CTV cums to these kinds of stories. That might actually shame the city just enough to do something about it.

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  40. Fair enough Kitteh. I was thinking more of C.U.P.E. and C.U.P.W. whose struggles against the scourge of sciatica and carpal tunnel syndrome have made us the envy of the bureaucratized world. >; )

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  41. do you have a scorpion tattoo wp? me pa will be eighty on the twelfth. with zedman, that’s three scorpions, jebus save us

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  42. Hey Wheelie, thanks for the links. I’d love to try that but I’m too much of a wimp. It’s best if I support you from the stands with a beer in my hands. MMMMmmmmm……beer! Now there’s a great temporary solution for all my problems! 🙂

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  45. I’ve been trying to find a decent place for a scorpion tat…
    sadly both ankles are taken so I’ve got to get a little more creative.

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  46. Oh Ivan, I agree so much.

    It’s amazing to see what certain unionized employees have access to, all the while bitching because they have no resources to work with in their org because their org has no money.

    I read, in detail, one particular university (that I’m NOT currently working for :P)’s collective agreement, and it’s mind boggling how the university has a hiring freeze and has tuition rising and is constantly poor mouthing, yet their employees under their staff union get the golden treatment.

    And let’s not forget about Federal Public Service employee unions.

    Unions have/had their place in blue collar industries. I fully support that, and yes, if I was a FPS employee, I wouldn’t be bitching about the benefits (and I’m fully aware how hypocritical that is), but as an outsider, they kind of seem pointless and a waste of resources. Especially since I’ve been on the ‘inside’ and I’ve seen how it doesn’t work in situations — for example, it’s pretty much impossible to get rid of someone in the FPS — that’s why you get so many who spend more of their time sitting on their arses doing fuck all except for infighting, spying and tattling on other employees than actually being productive.

    I just wanted to make that point about trade unions to differentiate! 🙂 My dad was pretty heavily involved in his union where he worked, and some of the stories he’s told me about management is sickening.

    On the tattoo note — I was actually thinking about this on my way to work this morning when I drove past a tattoo place, and I made an actual decision not to get any. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with them, but more so because I just don’t feel I could find something and a place that I”d be willing to permanently alter. I dunno, I just don’t think of tattoos as ‘dainty’ and the older I get the girlier I seem to be getting.

    And I’ve been told that if you’ve got a tattoo on your back (specifically a ‘tramp stamp’), you can’t get an epidural during labour. Or something. And seriously — natural childbirth is for masochists.

    I love tattoos on the menz, though. In tasteful moderation. Men with scalp/face/neck/all covered in dragons and snakes and skulls, I do not find attractive.

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  48. Roger that PK. I can tell ya some horror stories about management in a non-unionized environment. No offence to your Dad was meant (says the whack job prepared to go to war over perceived slights to family honour >: )

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  49. I wonder what chickies who need c-sections have to have done when they have tramp stamps.

    I know you weren’t jivin’ on mah dad. Y’all would love my dad. I should bring him to a summit sometime.

    Donarious refers to him as “The God Father.”

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